May 21, 2008 I’ve just spent the last 24 hours immersed in ABC soaps. Between Soapnet, TIVO and the networks daily broadcast I have completely buried myself in the imaginary worlds of Pine Valley, Llanview and Port Charles and let me tell you something it’s like I’ve been transported to another dimension. Needless to say I am ready to jump on into this fine broth and tell you how things look from the recliner over the last month. Wow. Wow. Wow. How can I not start with One Life to Live? While I have it on good authority that not everybody in cyberspace is head over heels in love with Ron Carlivati, I most certainly am. He has found what was lost about ABC soaps and heeding the clarion call from the fans (or not) is giving us giant, heaping helpings of what it is that I (for one, at least) want to see on daytime: Core families. Veteran actors in front burning storylines, family, pure soapy drama, a balanced canvas between old and new, soap staples and socially relevant stories... I mean they have got it going on! The Wedding of Rex and Adrianna is just delicious soapy goodness. I am completely on board for this entire thing. Gigi has stood up and declared her love for Rex during the ceremony and Adrianna (Adri-YAWNA no more!) balled up her manicured, blue blood, boarding school fist and hit Gigi right in the jaw for it. Good times! I mentioned on the podcast (ABC EDITION of DAYTIME CONFIDENTIAL - see link below) that the bride decking an ex was right out of the old Daytime Diva family album but maybe not so much now that I have seen it. No cops? No ambulance? The resemblances has stopped right there. No kidding though, I haven’t loved a soap wedding so much in many, MANY moons. I really want Rex & Gigi to get together, but is it just me or does Brody have a certain appeal as well? Whatever happened to him when he was at war he was seemingly genuinely in love with Gigi while she was pregnant with Shayne? Interesting addition to the mix, anyway! How good is it to see Marcie coming out of her funk and trying to think of something besides her loss? I love that. As I was saying today in the TV Fan Online Forums, I am not all that thrilled with Jar-Jar and Nat hitting the sheets. I might be getting to be a prude in my elder years but I find it nasty that they are supposed uncle and niece yet have slept together. I’ll hold off on any Arkansas or Appalachia jokes and just say I do not know to whom this pairing is attractive, but it is not me. What I find attractive is David Vickers. From the minute I saw him in his ridiculous wife beater complete with hairnet and neckerchief at the Bon Jour I was back on board for whatever mayhem he gets up to this time. The whole blackmailing the nasty-knockers thing isn’t going to fly but I am going to love watching David find out he is actually the Buchanan heir. It’s funny and fitting after trying to do the exact scam Jar-Jar is pulling he had the exact same problem derail him, the hot-to-trots for his so called relative. I love his picking at Viki about sharing her motel room and pretending that was more than what it was. I think David is a treat, like a nice frosty cold drink on a hot summer day! Oh and you are not going to believe this because it is a real first for me but I am now firmly behind a John McBain romance! Yeppers! I want a JoBlair pair! It may simply be that I am sick to high heaven of the Blair and Todd marry-go-round. Or it might be my simmering hatred bordering on loathing for the reprehensible snake Todd Manning, either way I so want him to lose everything; His wife, his kids, his home, his business. I’d love for this time next year the character of Todd to be seen as a back ground character ONLY, dumpster diving for a morsel of soiled food to stave off starvation as the entire town, nay the world; have forgotten his very existence. Sigh. Never happen, I know but I just… hate… him! He has mangled the Starr and Cole thing from the very beginning! He is so ate up with ego and self loathing that he is insane with it. Knocking his daughter down the flight of stairs so that he could hit the boy she loves in the face does not show any degree of fatherly instincts at all. It is all about him and no one else. His daughter is not ever going to be old enough to have a sexual relationship in his eyes. Sex holds no beauty, no mystery or love in his eyes. It seems sex is a base naked urge that he has perverted in his head to be a nasty, ugly thing and to acknowledge that his own child has a heart and mind that would yearn for the beauty of a physical relationship would never occur to the maniac. Damn you Ron Carlivati for making me care about this storyline that otherwise I had no desire to watch! I’ve never really liked Starr, but not because of her, really, I just hate kids on soaps as a rule. I wasn’t particularly fond of Cole but even the stupidity of their running away has caught my attention. I do not want to care what happens to them. I do not want to wish for them to get the chance to hold their little baby all pink and squeaky and learn together that life and love ain’t what kids think it is. I do not want to root for them as a couple. It can’t end well and I hate being drawn in and made to care only to be slapped down purely for the fun of TPTB watching me hit the ground. A few love notes about One Life to Live that will show I haven’t gone completely Pollyanna Pureheart on you: What happened to the promise of the Lindsey/RJ/BO story? Is it a casualty of the writers strike? Wasn’t Miles living in the extra house where Gigi and Shane are now? Did I miss his moving out? Where is he? How long will I have to watch Talia and Antonio sneaking around like hot tenth graders to be together? I want that over now! I may be wearing rose colored glasses, or still high off the enjoyment of watching a quality show like One Life to Live has become but All My Children hasn’t been quite as dreadful as usual either. There is so much fun in watching Jessie and Angie although, like Jessie, I’d love to know what Cassandra’s major malfunction is, besides the Gardner creep I mean. I’ve loved Dixie’s return to haunt Adam as well. He was terrified until he found out it was her and she was an actual spirit, and then he is just treating her with the same disrespect as he always has. It’s typical Adam! I thought the scenes with JR and Little A and Dixie were very bittersweet too. Good job. Babe has apparently finally seen Richie for who and what he really is; excellent also. They are setting Tad up to find his daughter quite well, I think and I am very much looking forward to it. What a major disappointment for me in meeting Jake Martin. Why do they think that all men have to be tortured, beleaguered, plagued and (apparently) giant flaming asses? I was turned off to him the first minute he was in the hospital snarking at Angie Hubbard. I have no investment in the character and we certainly do not need another dark, brooding male on this show so ship his happy, healing ass back to the jungle and call it over as far as I am concerned. Why did they recast Colby again with a look alike Colby who doesn’t appear to be any older than the first one? She didn’t suck that bad, A little inexperienced, but she was coming into her own and then this? I don’t get it. Remember my momentary enjoyment of Annie? Forget it. The whole Ryan fiasco just makes me want to clean the grout in my bathrooms every time they are on my screen. Yes, Kendall and all of them. My grout just sparkles at all the scrubbing they have endured thanks to my disinterest in these people. Oddly enough, I like Aidan, but the rest of them can go rot for all I care. How right Aidan was Monday May 19 when he said he didn’t understand how Greenlee could be obsessed with giving Ryan a child but now she has changed her mind and doesn’t want children? Run Aidan Devane. Run. How about jogging on over to Port Charles where you have family? Oh, Port Charles. What fun they have been having over there since last we conversed! General Hospital has just been dank and dark and dreary, in my opinion. While I am gratified that they are finally taking the time to tell a story that underlines that mob life is bad for everyone involved (and thank you Soapbabie for pointing that out to me), I simply have a hard time getting excited about it after they burdened Monica with a 30 day alcoholism storyline and then shipped her off to rehab, off screen of course. Let’s see, what’s been happening? Jason killed Dr. Devil but the death of the man who pulled the trigger on Michael has not satisfied anyone’s taste for revenge. Who saw that shocker coming, huh? You? I really hate that Za-Crazy daddy is playing Trevor against Ric. I really do. Ric has been played for the fool AGAIN. TPTB will never allow him to win at any time and I so do not want to watch him lose yet another time to a family member who hates him. Mildly interesting chemistry between him and Claudia, I wonder if we will get to see how it plays out or if TPTB are already forcing the players into position for one of their famous unnatural pairings? How incredibly lame is Za-Crazy Daddy forcing Lulu and J-yawn-y Za-Crazy together. I think it is the dumbest thing I have ever watched and that would be saying something! I can’t stand any of them. Sincerely! Now Claudia was knifed and thrown in the harbor by our redeemed and sanitized version of James Craig the terrorist murderer. Nice. Why don’t you play some more tonsil hockey with the brutal fanatic; Alexis? That hottie is your kind of mentally screwed up man. Yuck. He makes me sick. Nic has rescued Claudia but is that going to turn out well for either of them? He is a prince and she is in dire need of rescuing. Is that enough to make them the next love match? Not as far as I am concerned. She is very, very damaged. The way she vomits her sexuality into men’s laps speaks volumes about her self worth, doesn’t it? She has defined herself by how men treat her. How sad. She isn’t a strong, brave woman fighting for her place in a family or the world she is a wounded animal seeking shelter at any cost. If it weren’t wrapped up in the steaming pile of offal that is the mob story I might find it worth watching such a damaged woman find her self worth perhaps with the love of a good man. Women like Claudia, though, she requires an unusual love match for it to resonate with us. It can’t be the kind of Carly/Sonny love hate thing because that is too typical. Sonny dumped Kate because she “BETRAYED” him. Okee-dokee-smokey; next! Bring on the next in the line of faceless nameless Brenda-bots to soothe the savage beast and I’ll go watch paint dry instead. Then Sonny has sex in the limo with Carly. R-i-i-g-g-h-h-t-t-t. I’m searching and searching but can’t seem to find any ounce of compassion for him on either score. You reap what you sow and Sonny deserves nothing better. Suffer! See what I mean? The show is so dank and dark and gloomy! General Hospital has so few bright spots! One of them is Maxie. Another is Maxie and Spinelli and Spinelli is also a bright spot by himself. He is carrying around his laptop of notes on how to get women to like him and tries his wiles on a hooker. Coleman and Jason were both just too funny dealing with him. It was light hearted and fun and there is just not enough of that on the show. It won’t come as any surprise to you that I’d love to see the mystery of the medication at General Hospital played out and not in the same irresponsible way they told us Monica’s alcohol story. Come on people, it is a no brain-er! It is a show about a hospital! I just wish they could work within that very simple parameter a little bit more! Umm, or, I mean AT ALL. Sheesh! Like what you read? You can hear more from me by listening for me on the ABC Edition of The Daytime Confidential Podcast at Daytime Confidential<dot>com where I also blog about OLTL and as always I hope you’ll look for me again here at my home at Eye On Soaps next week. Meantime, like they say on that talk show, I hope you enjoy the View!
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